| | |  | BY RENUKA RAYASAM | | With help from Ryan Heath and Myah Ward
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| A CEILING SO NICE THEY RAISED IT TWICE — Move over, mothballed White House Correspondents’ Dinner. Steer clear, throngs of tourists descending upon the cherry blossoms. Washington’s most unwelcome tradition is even more taxing and unpleasant: a debt ceiling standoff that regularly rattles markets and threatens the country’s financial stability. Senate Republicans pulled together 11 votes this evening to help seal the deal between Democrats and Minority Leader Mitch McConnell to punt the current debt ceiling drama to December. Earlier today, Sen. Ted Cruz (R-Texas) had threatened to filibuster a temporary debt ceiling increase, sending the talks into another tailspin. So why not just get rid of the debt ceiling altogether? The answer has less to do with an effort to control government spending and more to do with the desire of both parties to preserve a powerful tool that can force concessions on big bills, POLITICO’s budget and appropriations reporter Caitlin Emma told Nightly today. Watch to see if Caitlin can explain the debt ceiling standoff and the dynamics of this year’s fight in three minutes or less. Welcome to POLITICO Nightly. Reach out with news, tips and ideas for us at nightly@politico.com. Or contact tonight’s author at rrayasam@politico.com or on Twitter at @RenuRayasam. Programming note: Nightly will not publish on Monday, Oct. 11. But don’t worry, we’ll be back and better than ever Tuesday, Oct. 12.
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A message from UnitedHealth Group: Research shows that social barriers – including access to stable housing and nutritious food – can impact up to 80% of health outcomes. UnitedHealth Group is committed to addressing social determinants of health and has helped create 12,000 homes since 2011 and distribute more than 100 million meals since the pandemic began. See how we’re helping to advance health equity. | | | | | | 
Toronto’s Yonge and Dundas Square. | Ian Willms/Getty Images | REVERSE LOCKDOWN — Global Insider author Ryan Heath emails us: Imagine not being able to take the D.C. Metro, or an Amtrak train, or a Disney cruise without a vaccination. That’s what our northern neighbors in Canada are bringing into force starting Oct. 30, with new rules covering flights, trains that cross state (province) lines and cruises. On Canada’s west coast, after Oct. 12, you’ll also be blocked from visiting your elderly relatives in nursing homes if you’re unvaccinated. And in the conservative prairie heartland of Alberta, there’s even a vaccine mandate for members of Parliament. In American terms, you won’t find a deeper red state than Alberta: Can you imagine Marjorie Taylor Greene dealing with a vax check to get to her office? Officially, lockdowns may be over in many parts of the world. But in some respects, governments are just getting more creative. Instead of locking everyone in their home, they punish the unvaccinated by stopping them from getting where they want or need to go. Mandates are becoming the go-to solution for governments that didn’t implement national vaccine passports, but are determined to increase the price on those holding out. Like the Biden administration — which is enacting vaccine mandates covering workers at large businesses, health organizations and the federal government — Ottawa is cracking down where it has most influence. “If you want to work for the government of Canada — which means the people of Canada — you have to be fully vaccinated,” said Deputy Prime Minister Chrystia Freeland at a Wednesday press conference. Unlike President Joe Biden, the Canadian government has the luxury of knowing that “more than 80 percent of Canadians 12 years and older are fully vaccinated. That gives the country one of the highest rates in the world,” POLITICO Canada correspondent Andy Blatchford wrote Wednesday. Exceptions will be made for members of Indigenous communities who access essential services via flights. The policies put Canada’s Conservative opposition party in a tight spot: Leader Erin O’Toole opposes the mandates. “It’s about smoking out anti-vax Conservatives,” Andy said. Every member of Parliament from Canada’s governing Liberal party, left-wing New Democratic Party and the nationalist Bloc Quebecois is vaccinated, the parties said, and there’s now a push to extend the vaccine mandate to all members from all parties. Prime Minister Justin Trudeau said Wednesday that MPs would have to figure out their own system: The government does not have the constitutional power to extend a vaccine mandate to members of Parliament. While that looks like an effort by Trudeau to avoid overreach, it also puts the Canadian Parliament on notice. If MPs don’t vote for their own restrictions, they’ll stand accused of hypocrisy: imposing mandates on others while giving themselves a free pass.
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| | THE MILKEN INSTITUTE GLOBAL CONFERENCE 2021 IS HERE: POLITICO is excited to partner with the Milken Institute to produce a special edition "Global Insider” newsletter featuring exclusive coverage and insights from one of the largest and most influential gatherings of experts reinventing finance, health, technology, philanthropy, industry and media. Don’t miss a thing from the 24th annual Milken Institute Global Conference in Los Angeles, from Oct. 17 to 20. Can't make it? We've got you covered. Planning to attend? Enhance your #MIGlobal experience and subscribe today. | | | | | | | — Trump tells 4 former aides to defy Jan. 6 committee’s subpoena: Former President Donald Trump is directing a group of his former aides to ignore a subpoena from the House committee probing the Jan. 6 Capitol attack and signaling he will go to court to block their testimony to investigators. The committee has subpoenaed documents and testimony from four Trump administration alumni: former social media czar Dan Scavino, former Defense Department official Kash Patel, former chief of staff Mark Meadows and former White House adviser Steve Bannon. The four men were ordered to turn over documents related to Jan. 6 by today and to sit for interviews with investigators next week. — CIA launches new China-focused unit: The Central Intelligence Agency announced the formation of a new China Mission Center today , underscoring the Biden administration’s focus on Beijing as a top foreign policy priority and a formidable global competitor to the United States. In a statement that referred to the Chinese government as a “key rival,” the CIA said the mission center was the result of a series of strategic reviews Director William Burns launched in the spring that concentrated on “China, technology, people and partnerships,” among other areas.
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| | | — Big Tobacco to Congress: Tax us and the black market will start preying on young smokers: A group tied to major cigarette manufacturers is warning Congress that if lawmakers tax tobacco to help pay for Biden’s domestic agenda, suppliers will market smokes to children. That was the not-so-subtle message made last month by a coalition of trade associations, including the National Association of Convenience Stores, as Congress began hammering out the specifics of the president’s Build Back Better bill. — Idaho governor repeals political rival’s executive order: The Idaho governor late Wednesday issued an executive order repealing his political rival’s executive order from the previous day involving Covid-19 vaccine passports and mandatory testing. Republican Gov. Brad Little issued the order while still in Texas, a move that challenges the state’s longstanding practice of making the lieutenant governor acting governor when the governor is out of state. — GOP senators target Pentagon nominee over ‘offensive’ tweets: Republicans on the Senate Armed Services Committee said today they were opposed to Pentagon nominee Brenda Sue Fulton , citing her past tweets and statements criticizing the GOP and evangelicals. During a confirmation hearing for a trio of nominees, several Republicans — including Sens. Tom Cotton of Arkansas, Rick Scott of Florida, Josh Hawley of Missouri and Dan Sullivan of Alaska — said they would outright oppose Fulton’s confirmation to be assistant secretary of Defense for manpower and reserve affairs.
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A teacher at Yung Wing School P.S. 124 gives a lesson to her masked students in their classroom in New York City. | Michael Loccisano/Getty Images | YOU KNOW, FOR KIDS — Pfizer and BioNTech asked the FDA today to authorize their Covid vaccine for children between 5 and 11 today, paving the way for roughly 28 million children to be eligible for shots in a matter of weeks. The next step: figuring out the quickest and most effective way to get shots in kids’ arms. The logical place for mass vaccination of children would be schools, Mark R. Schleiss, a pediatric infectious disease expert at the University of Minnesota Medical School, told Nightly’s Myah Ward. Schleiss remembers being lined up in the gymnasium with his classmates to get the MMR vaccine in the ’70s. After an initial series of vaccinations at schools, the work should then shift to pediatricians’ offices and pharmacies, Schleiss said — especially if children end up needing an annual shot like they do for the flu. “We’re going to have pushback,” Schleiss said. “Society has changed in 50 years, and the idea of an old man in white coat telling you what’s best for you and your family — my parents’ generation sort of believed that. And today, some assume that whatever the old man in the white coat says is actually a lie.” If you thought the political battle over vaccines has been tense, just wait for how fraught the conversation will become when it’s about the health and safety of children. Vaccine advocates and the vaccine hesitant alike are surely going to make their arguments with increased fervor. “The minute people begin to cry out about this being an affront to freedom,” Schleiss said, “we have to pause and say, ‘wait a minute, for decades, we’ve recognized that requiring students to be vaccinated before they go into the classroom saves lives and controls disease.’”
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| | BECOME A GLOBAL INSIDER: The world is more connected than ever. It has never been more essential to identify, unpack and analyze important news, trends and decisions shaping our future — and we’ve got you covered! Every Monday, Wednesday and Friday, Global Insider author Ryan Heath navigates the global news maze and connects you to power players and events changing our world. Don’t miss out on this influential global community. Subscribe now. | | | | | | | | |
72 percent The traffic increase for Twitter during the five-plus-hour Facebook outage this week, according to Chartbeat. |
| | | KEEPING AN EYE ON ENERGY — Jake Sullivan, the U.S. national security adviser, said today that the White House wants to work with Europe to ensure that energy supply keeps up with rising demand and to prevent a crisis that could stall the global economic recovery from the coronavirus pandemic, chief Brussels correspondent David M. Herszenhorn writes. Sullivan, who met European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen and other top officials during a visit to Brussels today, said he would not speculate on whether Russia was manipulating gas prices, which swung wildly in recent days, including in response to comments by President Vladimir Putin. “Russia has a history of using energy as a tool of coercion, as a political weapon,” Sullivan told journalists. “Whether that’s what’s happening here now is something I will leave to others.” He continued: “What I will say is that the United States has a real concern that, for a variety of reasons, supply is not keeping up with recovering demand and we have a fundamental interest in seeing global energy supplies — and both gas and oil — at sufficient levels to support a global economic recovery and not to stall it out.”
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